


Mercy for Mercy

by SilverDagger



Category: Claymore
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4889209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between Miria's first strike on the Organization and the final revolt, Audrey takes on the responsibility of training two hurt but dangerous children, and struggles with the conflicting demands of duty and doing what's right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy for Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Contains non-graphic and canon-typical depiction of child abuse.
> 
> Lightly edited, with thanks to NumberA for suggestions regarding sentence structure and organization.

Audrey pushes herself to her feet, blinking away dirt and blood, still reeling from the shock and shame of defeat. That's when she sees the twins: little more than shadows in her vision, blurs of yoki silhouetted against a low, sullen sky. The traitor has fallen back, her eyes far away and unseeing, and Audrey watches one of them spring forward, lift her blade and strike with unflinching precision. Time moves slowly and strangely, and everything is distant and very clear, like the world seen through the wrong end of a spyglass.

Around her, injured warriors are rising to their feet, reclaiming their blades, and Audrey realizes as she takes a count of each that none on the battlefield are dead. The traitor isn't dead either, not yet. She's kneeling, pierced through the chest, not incapacitated but not fighting either. Audrey sees her smile through tears, speaking to some old comrade long dead.

 _She spared us,_ Audrey thinks, and shifts her grip on her sword, stepping forward as the others take their places. It shouldn't matter. The price of rebellion is death. It has to be. But for all that it _shouldn't_ matter, the thought of cutting down a fellow soldier is not like she'd imagined it would be – not so clean, so obvious, and she knows there's only one way she can end this.

 _Mercy for mercy,_ she thinks, and brings her sword down in one heavy strike, severing the traitor's arm above the wrist.

There is a moment, in the carnage that follows, when she sees the two children standing side by side, each as like to the other as any reflection. One has blood on her face that she does not wipe away, matted sticky in her hair, and the other is standing as if uncertain what to do next, her sword held loosely in one hand. It occurs to Audrey that the two of them cannot be older than twelve, maybe younger than ten – but there were other things she saw on that battlefield too, and she turns her eyes away from the bloodstained trainees and back to the ugly work at hand.

It is only later – after she has washed the dirt of battle and the traitor's blood from her skin, and seen her smuggled safe and alive to someplace close that will not be found – that Audrey recalls the twins, and realizes that she cannot simply let them go.

* 

"They frighten you," Rubel says. He walks beside her, setting the pace, and she slows her steps to match it, keeping her expression carefully blank. He had granted her an audience, and for that, she owes him courtesy, if nothing else. It's a rare thing for one of the warriors to speak to anyone so high in the Organization at their own request, and not an opportunity Audrey can afford to waste on any small rebellion.

"The idea of them frightens me, I won't deny it," she says. "It shouldn't even be possible."

Rubel looks amused. "And you still wish to train them?"

"They need training," she says. "You said it yourself. They nearly failed on the field. And with respect, sir, if we are to be kept from our provinces until further notice, I would prefer to do something of use with my time."

"Ah. Of course. Your devotion to duty is, as always, commendable."

Audrey can feel him watching her, weighing her words in the balance. That she is being tested is certain; the criteria on which his judgement rests are less so. But it must look strange, she supposes, for any warrior to seem too at ease with this, and she frowns suddenly, as if something troubling had only just occurred to her. " _Is_ it safe?"

"Without question," Rubel says. "We've conditioned them absolutely. Outside of battle, they will take no action without command – not even to rest, or touch food or water, or attend to any minor physical pain or weakness. Those two are weapons as reliable as the blade at your back."

"I have to _order_ them to heal themselves when injured?"

"Does that bother you?" His voice is mild, concerned, his face set in a mask of grandfatherly kindness. This is delicate. She has to be careful.

"It's harsh," she says, lets him hear that she believes it. "But probably wise, knowing what they are." She keeps walking, doesn't alter her pace or give any indication of doubt, but her stomach roils at the thought of it – what was done to them. What they've been made into.

"If this is necessary to protect the Organization... I don't have to like it," she says.

"As you say," Rubel says. "And it is necessary. It's good you understand that. There have been so many lately who don't." His eyes behind his spectacles are unreadable, dark on dark like human eyes so often are. She could tear him in half with just her hands. She knows he knows it. She won't, and he knows that too.

They turn a corner, and the path begins to slope downward, leading deeper into the hollowed out stone of the mountain. Their footsteps echo in the bare corridors as Rubel leads her past the trainee quarters, where she can hear the muttered conversations of girls preparing for morning drills, and further down along a narrow hall. The lanterns grow dimmer and sparser as they walk, until at last they stop outside a heavy door banded with reinforced steel and some dull silvery alloy she doesn't recognize. Inside is a small room with nothing much inside it. Dim light from one high phosphorescent lantern, a washbasin and a chamber pot, a pallet on the floor. And two small figures sitting shoulder to shoulder, arms wrapped around their knees.

 _Too small,_ she thinks, _two young. Too strong._

"Stand," Rubel says, not ungently. They do.

"This is number three, Audrey. You will obey her, to the extent that her orders do not conflict with our own. Do you understand?"

"Yes," the girls say in unison – a soft monotone, not quite a whisper, no hint of emotion. And a shift in the flow of yoki that speaks of uncertainty-curiosity-apprehension, so deep beneath the surface it barely leaves a ripple, subtle enough that she might have imagined it entirely.

"I'll be taking over your training," she says, trying for a kindness more genuine than Rubel's serpentine smile. She can remember the first day of her own training at the hands of an older soldier, the one they had called God-Eye before she disappeared. That woman had been terrifying. Or perhaps she had just seemed so then, like all warriors had to her younger self, an entity stranded halfway between beast and legend. Audrey wonders sometimes if any of the trainees ever looks at her own generation and sees the same. Not these two, though. They watch, from beneath a fringe of ragged hair, but what they see is anyone's guess.

They're just trainees, she thinks. No different from any other. Rubel's words echo in her mind, _reliable as the blade at your back,_ and her stomach twists again with some unfamiliar emotion that lodges bitter in the back of her throat. Anger, she thinks, or guilt. It's hard sometimes to tell the difference between them.

"Follow me," she says. The twins fall into step behind her without a sound, and she leads them back the way she came, past locked doors with heavy bars and trainee quarters now silent and deserted. She feels chilled, though the cold of these high steppes means little to their kind, and eager to get back to the surface, out of these enclosing walls. She senses – or imagines she senses – two pairs of eyes fixed on her back, luminous silver and utterly blank, hears two sets of soft and even footsteps pacing behind her. She feels, for the barest moment, like prey.

But that isn't – _right_ , she thinks. Not accurate. Not when she can still recall that lone small soldier on the battlefield, the victor, the first to strike and not to kill. The Organization is wrong, she's sure of it. There must be some spirit left, some conscious thought. But there's a difference between choosing not to kill and having the strength to shake off orders directly given. Every one of them had felt it then, listening for the words they were sure would be spoken, sick with guilty relief when those words never came. If Rubel is right about the conditioning, these two might be enemies, no matter what they want.

She needs to know. She needs to be certain.

And if it comes to that, she needs to know what it means to face them in battle.

*

The training ground that Rubel directs her to is isolated, and far enough away that an awakening will not draw the attention of every higher-ranking warrior in the vicinity. Which is not to say that Audrey intends to put them through that immediately, and perhaps not ever, if she has her choice in the matter – though it may be that she doesn't. It seems a cruel thing to do, no matter that they're trained to it. But it's an unexpected blessing to be, as much as anyone ever is, away from the Organization's eyes.

Drills first. Audrey runs the twins through simple exercises, assessing strength and balance and technique. Out in the sunlight with a light breeze blowing, the darkness of the basement levels seems far away, and the day is almost pleasant, provided she doesn't let her thoughts linger. And the girls are good students, the best she's taught yet, quick to correct any mistake once pointed out to them. If their wordless obedience is unnerving, Audrey grows accustomed to it quickly.

It becomes clear soon enough that they've been taught or allowed to rely on brute force before finesse, and Audrey shoves down a wave of contempt for her would-be masters at the thought of that. The Organization has always been satisfied with the crudest tool that will do the job. But even poorly trained, the twins are powerful. They hold back, never taking the initiative – she'll have to command them if she wants them to attack – but they move quickly, guarding each other with automatic ease. It's easy to see how these two could have taken on the former number six. Easy to forget they're just trainees – at least until the match is over and they're left standing at rigid attention, alert but still, the only hint of weariness the unsteady waver of their shared yoki. The Organization's men wouldn't be able to notice that, Audrey thinks. They would have no way of knowing at all.

"Do you need to rest for a while?" she asks. They don't react. No change in posture, no shift in attention.

"That is not relevant," one ventures, after a moment.

 _Conditioning,_ Audrey remembers. They won't take care of themselves. They'll fight until they drop dead from exhaustion, if that's what she commands of them. She'd known that, or she should have. This is the first time she's really considered what it might mean.

"We rest, then," she says. "A warrior needs to know her limits." It's the hardest thing to learn, and without question the easiest to forget. God-Eye Galatea had practically beaten it into the lot of them in training, not with fists but with words uncompromising enough to leave them all shaking, a few holding back tears. A warrior _needs_ to know her limits, because if she fails to heed them, she won't be the only one who pays.

And perhaps that had been necessary, for girls who would be soldiers. She can't deny that the discipline and the fear had served her well. But these two... Audrey doesn't doubt they've had their fill of both already, and it seems to her that if there's a lesson that needs learning, for them it's a different one entirely.

"If you grow tired, you tell me," she says.

"Acknowledged. We will obey."

Audrey shivers at the vacant quality of the girl's voice, recognition with no hint of understanding. She doesn't know how to handle this. Monsters, she kills, and weapons are only weapons, but she doesn't know how to deal with children at all.

 _With kindness, surely,_ she thinks. But she wonders, looking at the two of them standing there, whether such a small thing is enough to do them any good at all.

Still, Audrey brings water with her the next day, and a pack of food from the kitchens – apples, bread, some sort of savory pie made with herbs and potatoes. Not much by human standards, but it's enough for a warrior after a week's worth of hard traveling, and no more than will be missed.

She doesn't know why that matters so much – the kitchens aren't closed to warriors – but she hasn't survived this long by ignoring her own intuition. She has the uneasy sense that being too kind to the twins will get this training shut down more quickly than treating them too harshly, and drawing attention to anything out of the ordinary right now feels like a risk.

"I brought this for you," she says, during their midday break. They look at her like they don't know what food is for. 

Audrey shakes her head in frustration, angrier at herself than the Organization's leaders. Had she truly expected that it would be easy to just treat these girls as human children, and have them act accordingly? She should have known better than that. And it would be simple enough to do as Rubel had told her, and simply command them to eat and drink and rest when she knows they must need to, but the thought of that sits badly. _Unless..._ she wonders. Orders must be obeyed. Conditional statements, though - there might be something there, a loophole to be exploited, a crack where some free choice might slip in. It's worth trying, at the least.

Audrey gestures at the pack of food and water, speaking carefully. "If you want nothing, take nothing. If you're hungry, eat. If you want water, drink."

The twins stare for a moment longer, and then they do, neatly and mechanically, with an automaton's precision. They remind her of the wind-up gadgets she'd seen in the city as a child, nothing but the action of gears and coiled springs – until she sees one pause, silently break the pastry in half and hand the larger piece to her sister.

*

After that, Audrey always brings water with her, and every few days she brings food, and she always takes time to stop and let the twins feel the sun and wind before returning them to the organization's halls. Whether or not it matters to them, whether it's kindness or the opposite of kindness, it's hard to say. They still don't answer when she speaks, except in response to direct queries and commands. They still watch her unblinking, and she can't tell whether they fear her, or despise her, or feel any emotion at all. But she sees their eyes stray to the desert or the sky when she lets them think her attention is elsewhere, or to the jagged line of the mountains, and sometimes she sees one bend to run her fingers through dry sand or turn her head to follow the path of a dragonfly's flight.

Then, one day, as she's laying out their evening meal, one of them looks up at her.

"Why are you doing this?" the girl asks. Her voice is clear and cold, each syllable enunciated. Audrey realizes that she had not been frightened of them for a long time, and she recognizes that now because it feels like ground she thought steady has shifted underfoot, and she is suddenly uncertain in their presence again.

She waits for a moment before answering. She feels the words _we need your help_ ready to be spoken, but she holds them back. _Be patient,_ she tells herself. There is time. It will serve nothing to act too soon.

"The traitor defeated me too easily that day," she says instead, with a rueful smile. "I need to hone my skills against a worthy opponent. And you need a teacher skilled enough to challenge you."

"No," the other twin says, lifting the waterskin. " _This._ Why – "

_Ah. Of course._

"Because..." She shakes her head, at a loss for words. "Because you're not machines. I'm not going to treat you like you are."

They frown at her briefly, confusion mirrored on each other's faces, fading quickly back to equilibrium.

"We don't – " one starts.

" _Understand_ you," the other finishes, picking up effortlessly where her sister had left off. "We don't – "

"Understand your actions. Your reasons."

Audrey pauses, trying to think of something that will make sense to them, with the world they've been given.

"I've told you before," she says at last. "We warriors need to keep ourselves in good condition. It's dangerous not to."

"That is no difficulty," one twin says softly. "For us."

Audrey nods. "I'm aware of that. It just seems wrong to me, I suppose."

"Against the orders you were given?" the first twin says slowly, as if testing the words.

"You could say that," Audrey says. It seems to satisfy them, and she wonders if she ought to feel bad for lying, or simply relieved to have gotten through using language they understand. And with that thought, it suddenly isn't enough to know them only as the twins, two among many, nothing to them but numbers they haven't even been given yet. They're people, and Audrey hasn't even asked them who they are.

An oversight that needs to be remedied. She crouches down to talk to them at their level, unthreatening as she can make herself, and asks, "what are your names?"

For the barest flash of a second – too quick, perhaps, for human eyes to catch – the girls look stricken.

"That is irrelevant," one says. Audrey feels the back of her neck prickle in warning, and wonders if it would be closer to mercy or cowardice to leave this alone.

"No it isn't," she says, as gently as she can. "I want to know what I ought to call you."

"It is. It is irrelevant," the first says again, her near-monotone voice threaded with something that sounds a lot like fear. Maybe even panic, held in check. The other moves to stand beside her, not touching but just a breath away, close enough – Audrey thinks – to deflect a blow, or take it on herself.

"It's alright," she says. "It doesn't matter. You don't have to tell me."

"It is irrelevant," the first twin says again, more quietly. "We do not understand."

"It's fine," Audrey says. "Listen. I'm not angry with you. I was only curious. I don't understand you either. I want to try."

"Acknowledged," they say. One tilts her head, blinking up at Audrey owlishly. "We are to be soldiers. Our purpose is the defense of the Organization. We have no other purpose."

"Why didn't you kill the Phantom?"

"She was strong. We could not kill her."

"She was defeated," Audrey says softly. "You beat her."

"Not we," one twin says.

"We could not – " the other starts, and their demeanor shifts again, falls back into blankness. " We were corrected for our failure. There will be no future failures."

"It wasn't a failure," Audrey says, her throat tight. "I lost that fight too."

"Our purpose," the first twin says, her eyes fixed forward, "is the defense of the Organization. In the future, we will act correctly, and in accordance with our purpose."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have – I won't trouble you with this again," Audrey says. They say nothing in reply, though she knows, without question, that they will tell her what she wants, whatever she wants, if she only gives the command. She doesn't. She fears she's done something foolish, spoken badly and damaged something that had been fragile but _there_ and now is not. And when she looks to the west, the sun is sinking low in the sky. She'll have to return them soon.

 _Galatea deserted,_ she thinks. It's an insistent thought, no matter how firmly she tries to dismiss it. _She just walked away._ it wouldn't be so difficult, she suspects, for her to do the same – just leave, and hide, and take the twins with her. But she can't. Too much rests on her remaining, and it would be more than the Organization she would be deserting now.

Still, she keeps the twins at their training until it's nearly dark, lets them match blades with each other instead of pushing for improvement and watches as they gradually settle back into an almost meditative calm. It's superficial. She sees that, now that she knows what to look for. She can feel ripples of dark, indistinct emotion troubling the surface of their aura, but there's no more she can do to protect them yet.

No. That's a lie, and she has no right to it. She's choosing to do no more, and it's for a purpose, but she's not the one who's paying for it. And no matter how she delays, the day is wearing on, and she has no doubt the men of the Organization are growing impatient. For all the faultless loyalty she's projected, even she can't keep their most prized weapons forever without question.

"I'm sorry," she says. "We have to go back now."

"The twins acknowledge that with simultaneous sharp nods, and do not say anything at all. They don't resist, though, when she leads them back to the fortress or when she hands them off to their keepers; the only one in danger of striking out at those smug jailers is Audrey. But she doesn't. She only clenches her teeth around the bitterness of her own hypocrisy, and does her best to make it look like a smile.

On the way out, she walks quickly, and doesn't look back. Other warriors in the hallways avert their eyes and step aside as she passes, and even getting out from under the weight of all that stone and into open air is not the relief that it should have been. The warriors' practice yard is empty, or nearly so, no ambition tens or upper twenties seeking a challenge match, no lower ranking warriors fool enough to get in her way. Just a pair of sparring trainees that squeak and run when they see her approaching, one of them dropping her practice sword behind her as she flees. She'll be punished for that, Audrey knows. A lesson she needs to learn. A lesson Audrey should not have forgotten. She demolishes the first practice dummy she sees with a one-handed swipe of her sword, sending splinters of wood and armor flying, then spins and beheads another, imagining black cloaks and red blood, pale flesh tearing beneath her claws.

 _Get ahold of yourself,_ she thinks. She doesn't dare tap into her yoki reserves now, though she can feel the power simmering beneath her skin, burning and roiling. It's all she can do already not to lash out wildly and bring this whole damnable place down around her. She lets her sword fall from her grip, and puts her fist through the wooden wall hard enough to leave a jagged hole two feet in diameter. The pain is enough to bring her back to herself, and she shakes her hand, the blood on her knuckles bright over new-healed skin.

 _Patience,_ she tells herself, _you need patience,_ but she's run dry on patience, on discipline, on anything else except this bottomless well of rage. And soon enough, even that is gone, and she sinks to the floor with all energy drained out of her.

She's still like that when Rachel finds her, sitting in the practice yard with her sword fallen beside her, surrounded by the damage she's done. The shadows of barracks and storehouses are long on the sandy ground, and the organization's central citadel rises above it all in a dark bulk of parapets and archways, barred gates, arrow-slit windows. Audrey senses the familiar aura closing in, but doesn't move until she feels Rachel's hand clasp her shoulder, yanking her to her feet.

"What the hell have you been doing?" Rachel says, gripping the muscle of Audrey's arm almost hard enough to hurt. If Audrey were human, there might be bruises, maybe snapping bone. But she isn't human, and Rachel knows that well enough not to worry about her own strength.

"Training the twins," Audrey says. "At my own request."

"I know that," Rachcel growls. "I'm not stupid. What I want to know is why you thought that was a good idea."

"They're just trainees. Like we were once, Ray. They're not – " _Dangerous,_ she thinks, but she can feel the lie there, and she pulls away from it.

"They never chose this life," she says instead, because that at least is true, and she makes no effort to hide what she thinks of it.

"It isn't right," Rachel says heavily. "Doing _that_ to kids. I'll agree with you there." She scowls at the ground, her mouth curled in disgust, and for the first time, Audrey senses something like true rebellion in her. Then she draws herself up again, back and shoulders straight, the rigid tension of steel under strain. "But that doesn't change what they are now."

"We need them on our side," Audrey says. She pitches her voice too low for an eavesdropper to hear, even though she knows there's no one close, no small sounds at the periphery of her hearing, no scent of human flesh and blood carried on the air. Caution is habit and necessity. Instincts are predatory, but _hers._

"Why?" Rachel asks.

"Because otherwise, we'll be fighting against them."

"That might happen anyway," Rachel says. "Those two are monsters, even more than the rest of us. Best thing we can do for them is put them out of their misery quickly."

Audrey looks up sharply, her breath escaping in a hiss. "We can't afford that, and you know it." 

But after today, this isn't about what they can afford anymore, what weapons they'll need for rebellion. This is about two children – or one child, if the organization is right, one shared mind split between two bodies, but she doesn't think the organization is right, entirely. Not about this, and not about many other things.

"Rachel," she says, halting. "I know you don't want this war."

Rachel laughs bluntly, dismissive, but there's no anger there. Not this time.

"Doesn't matter what I want," she says, and reaches up to brush a strand of hair from Audrey's face. "My first loyalty has always been to you."

Rachel's a funny one. She talks tougher than anyone Audrey has ever known, but even now, there's something unreserved in her eyes, her voice, that gruffness can't conceal. And Audrey never asked for loyalty, any more than she asked for strength, or for command, and the truth is she doesn't really know what to do with any of them. But she remembers nights on the road, in the wilderness between one mission and another, and the way it had always been different with another there beside her. And longer ago then that, in the dark after lights out, the tracks of tears on Rachel's gaunt, angry face as she looks down and away, then defiantly back again, daring Audrey to hate her. A rough and whispered confession, never to be repeated, the shame of a demon's impulses locked down tight and always there. They were trainees together. They fought side by side through a hundred battles, stood together, held each other back from the brink.

"It's alright," Audrey says. "That's not what I want from you, you know. Not loyalty."

"Then what?"

"Nothing," she says, and catches herself in another lie, corrects it with a shake of her head. "Nothing that isn't freely given."

Rachel stares for a moment, startled for once into silence, then grins and claps her on the arm like they're young again and setting out on a mission, just the two of them alone in a world of strangers.

"You sappy idiot," she says, with more than a hint of fondness.

"Discourteous oaf," Audrey replies automatically, only more of the same verbal dueling they've been throwing back and forth since the day that they met. But it shakes her out of her thoughts, and that's what she needs right now: not to think, only to move through the days as she has been, quiescent, until the Phantom's signal finally comes. And until then, the same old litany of patience and control, no matter the cost in the meantime. It seems to her now, surrounded by splintered wood and shards of metal and anchored only by the heat of Rachel's palm on her arm, that her entire life has been spent learning those things, mastering them and making them part of herself, and she's suddenly, deeply sick of it.

But she can pick up her sword again without thought of using it, and when Rachel wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her away from the practice yard, she's tired enough to let herself be led.

Still, she sleeps badly that night, torn between weariness and restlessness, and when she rises she can feel a weight in the air like dark clouds gathering, even though she horizon is clear. She wants to leave this place. She wants this waiting to be over.

*

Rubel summons her to a private audience that day, just as the sun is nearing its zenith. He's waiting on the western parapets with a bottle of chilled wine and a plate of sugared fruit, which he offers her with a smile. She ignores both. If he's offended by her reticence, he gives no indication.

"How is the training progressing?"

"Well enough," she says. "They've got a lot to learn, but they learn it quickly."

Rubel nods. "I'm delighted to hear it. The Board is eager for a demonstration of their full potential in the field. It will be up to you to make sure they're ready."

"A demonstration? I had thought our enemies vanquished."

"There are always more enemies to be found." Rubel chuckles, a low, pleasant sound that sets her hair on end. "This is confidential, number three, but we have received word that the traitors have infiltrated Rabona, and the Holy City itself is rising against us."

That brings her up short, and for once, she cannot conceal her own disapproval.

"The city itself? You plan on deploying those two against humans?"

"Even without their considerable efficiency, I would imagine it work for which they are well-suited. But no. Not only humans." He sets his wineglass down, and moves to the edge of the battlements, looking westward. "There are deserters there, as I mentioned. You are familiar with your rank's previous occupant, and you have also heard, I imagine, of Blood Eye Miata. It will be to your benefit – and theirs – if the twins are well prepared for the task ahead of them.

"Will they have reinforcements?"

"An interesting question. One might almost think you are growing attached."

"I'm attached to the blade at my back, as well," she says. "That doesn't mean I can't recognize that it's a weapon. But they are not ready."

"Endeavor to correct that, number three. By any means necessary."

She says nothing more in protest. There would be no point. And the more she thinks on it, the more she gets the sneaking sense that Rubel isn't interested in her progress so much as her reactions, whatever emotion she betrays when he pushes her and she pushes back. He hasn't ordered her death yet, though. She wonders if that will change soon, and if not – _why?_

_What game are you playing?_

It doesn't matter. The Phantom will want to know the information he had let slip, but there's something happening here beyond a deserter being punished. Rabona is more than a change in tactics. If the Organization takes the Holy City, if Claymores turn their blades on humans, the entirety of the island will rise against them.

And if _that_ happens, there's only one possible outcome, and it chills her to think of it. If the island rises against the Organization, the entirety of island will fall.

No more waiting, then. If they are to move, it must be soon, and they must be ready.

*

She takes the twins out to the training ground that afternoon as she has every day before, up the long, stony path to the very edge of the Organization's land. But this time, instead of the familiar routine of practice drills and sparring, she says simply, "your trainers have decided that it's time for me to test your full capabilities."

They listen carefully, with no evidence of yesterday's turmoil or anything else besides polite, alert interest, as Audrey continues.

"You are to do whatever is necessary – short of killing me – to bring me down. Expect no less from me."

"Understood."

"Good," she says. "Then let's begin."

She draws her sword, brings it up to a guard. A moment later, one twin lifts her head in a single abrupt motion, eyes going gold, and the other begins to transform.

It's an unnerving sight. Somewhere between draconic and insectile, armored, bladed, _animal_ , the strange head adorned with a child's visage like a porcelain mask. It – _she_ – moves her head like a snake about to strike, drawing back, seeming to test the air. There's a moment of waiting, as Audrey tries to gauge the extent of her opponent's new strength and her defenses. Then the awakened being charges.

Audrey's only warning is the slight shift in the other twin's footing, and she has enough time to think that she'll have to train them out of that when this match is over. She falls back, deflecting the attack with a sliver of a second to spare, and circles around, looking for an opening.

She's never liked fighting awakened ones, even after growing sure enough in her own strength not to fear them. The reminder of what they could all become is too close, too present, and perhaps also the reminder of what they already are. Fighting the twins is disconcerting in a different way. They shift form so fluidly it's a challenge to keep up with them, trading strength for speed for strength again, using their bodies as weapons. She rolls to evade four bladed projections and spins to meet the other twin's charge, twists to the side as their swords clash and rebound in a jarring shower of sparks. But she has time to think before the first one strikes again, time to block, and that's when she knows she's being – tested? Or humored, perhaps, or pitied. It's impossible to say. She can't bring herself to utilize her full strength, either. There are still gaps in their defenses that need correcting, but none that she can use to her advantage, not without hurting them badly. And a fight with all parties pulling their punches is barely any fight at all.

The next time they give her an opportunity, she vaults backwards, out of reach, and slams her sword down into the packed earth.

"Enough," she says – and they freeze, the one that had awakened reverting back to human form in an instant. It's a transition even stranger in reverse, made strange, perhaps, by the very impossibility of it. The girl is there, in her armor, not a scratch on her. Eyes frantic for a moment, breathing ragged, before they both stand, pull themselves back into motionless composure.

"You're still holding back. Not fighting at your full potential," Audrey says.

"Yes," one says.

"Why?"

The other tilts her head curiously, and says, after a brief moment, "we did not wish to hurt you."

 _They disobeyed, then,_ Audrey thinks. _That was a direct order. They do disobey, when it's someone else on the line._

It's a startling possibility, that the Organization's conditioning hadn't been burned in as deeply and inflexibly as they believed. Almost frightening, when she remembers the hollow blankness in their eyes as they faced the Phantom, the raw power they could bring to bear, and considers what it would be like if her own instincts were ever given free rein. But they're standing close to one another now, and she can read apprehension in their aura, subdued but unmistakably present.

"Are we to be punished?"

"No," she says. "No, I'm glad you disobeyed me. I'm glad you can."

There's a moment when neither of them speak or move or even blink, waiting for a cue, perhaps, some sign of what to do from someone who gives the orders. Then one of them says it.

"You're the Organization's enemy."

Audrey goes still. This is dangerous. This is a risk, and the chance she's been waiting for.

"Yes," she says, mouth dry. "I am."

"We thought so," the girl says, in a rough whisper. Audrey can see that her fingers are clenched around the hilt of her sword – no practice blade this time – and read the tension in her shoulders and her spine. "You are a traitor."

"Are you going to kill me for it?"

"We did not kill the Phantom."

"We – we do not want – " the other twin says, tripping over words that sound like they physically pain her to say. "We do not want to kill you."

"So we will not," the first says. They find _will_ easier terrain than _want,_ it seems. Perhaps that itself is a good sign.

"There are more of us," Audrey says. "Enemies of the Organization. We want to stop them from hurting more people, and I know that they will, if we don't act soon. We could use your help."

"You plan to fight them?"

"Yes," Audrey says. "When it happens, we'll need someone to organize the trainees, get them out and keep them safe. Give the Organization hell in the process."

"We will," they promise, solemn, and she smiles to hear it. _That ought to keep them out of the worst of it._ Then she remembers how hard old habits are to break, and she chides herself for her lack of delicacy in this.

"It's not an order," she says.

"Even so," one twin says, and the other finishes, "we will."

"Good," Audrey says. "We're grateful for your help."

"Audrey," one of them says. It's the first time she's ever heard them say her name, or anyone's. "If the men try to stop us?"

That's something she's been trying not to think about. Even now, the compulsion not to attack humans goes deep, the knowledge of something not just wrong but _unspeakable_ , the worst of all possible things. _We don't kill humans. No matter what we do, we don't do that_. And Rachel's stringent need for rules, for protocol, she understands that too. She understands why. 

_We don't –_

But it had never been for their sake, that rule, or the sake of the people they were meant to protect. She knows that now. She looks at the twins, and remembers a small room with no windows and a door that locks from the outside only, remembers Rubel's reasonable, implacable voice and everything he told her.

"You have my permission to kill them," she says. "In fact – you are to handle the situation however you see fit. And that _is_ an order."

"You are ordering us," one of the two says quietly, intently, "to do what we want?"

"To do as you choose," she says. It seems, for some reason, an important distinction.

They bow their heads briefly, in unison, and say again, "we will."

It isn't until she's already started down along the trail back to headquarters that one of them catches her sleeve, fingers closing around her wrist with a strength that should be too great for that tiny frame, and isn't.

"Audrey?"

"Yes?

"Thank you," the girl says, and lets go.

After that, they don't speak again, all the way down the mountain.

*

She's back in her quarters at close of day, cleaning and repairing her armor like she's done on so many other evenings, on the road or in some lonely village inn, before she realizes she doesn't know what the thanks were for at all.

"Hey! Are you alright?" Rachel asks from the doorway. "Is everything – "

Audrey has to laugh at that, though it isn't really funny. 

"Fine," she says. "I'm just..."

She sets the armor down and lets out a long breath, then walks to the window and looks out over a country of rocks and desolation, the same view she's seen a hundred times before. It doesn't look any different now. She isn't sure why she'd thought it would. But she can feel a change in the air of this place, slow-building, subtle, maybe only imagination.

"Tired?" 

"Tired," she says.

"I hear ya." Rachel moved across the room, her footsteps heavy on the stone floor. She wraps her arms around Audrey from behind, and Audrey leans back, letting herself be comforted.

"One way or another," Rachel says, "we'll be done with all this crap soon."

She's right. 

Tomorrow there will be a battle here, or the day after, or whenever the command to take Rabona is given. She doesn't know how it will happen, or when, only that it will. And somewhere in the depths of this mountain there are two children with enough power to tear down walls, rip doors from hinges, two soldiers with the patience to wait and wait and wait. She's given them permission today to be what they are, to do what they will. She just doesn't know what that will be.

But still – the more she thinks about it, the more certain she is.

Everything is alright. Or it will be.

**Author's Note:**

> This thing has been kicking around my hard drive for a long time, and there are a lot of ways that I'm still not satisfied with it, but I think it's reached the point where it's not going to get any better. 
> 
> Writing around the names of canonically unnamed characters when I've decided not to just give them names is a challenge and a half.


End file.
